Mutiny, I Promise You
by Nirav
Summary: A follow-up to the episode "Bad Reputation": He watches her go, with her shoulders back and head held high, and wonders how anyone could ever walk by her in the hallways and not stare.


**Author's Note**: So, this smacked me in the head around midnight and wouldn't let me sleep until I got it out. I suppose it's my overly-active brain trying to sort out how _Bad Reputation_ played out. It's not so much that I don't think Quinn would have posted the list, but more that I really seriously doubt she would have been so sloppy in doing so. I mean, she's a smart kid-- or, at least, that's the impression I've always gotten-- and super sneaky to boot. Also, I really tend to love Finn inordinately, but he definitely has his trying-to-be-sneaky, less-than-honest moments.

* * *

She corners him the day after the glist debacle is mysteriously taken care of. It's after glee practice and, as he has since he and Rachel split up and he ran screaming from the Brittany-and-Santana confusion, he's walking to his locker on his way home alone. He looks up from shuffling through the stack of sheet music in his hand and comes to an abrupt stop when he sees her leaning against his locker, hands folded serenely over her unavoidable belly.

"Uh," he says slowly. "What are you doing?"

"You're not an idiot," she says. Her voice is light and conversational, but her eyes are narrow as they slide towards him, and he feels a bit like he's facing down a firing squad. "Granted, you're no Rhodes Scholar, but I know you aren't a complete imbecile."

"I… okay," he says. As always, he feels like his mind is three steps behind hers. It had been frustrating, dating an honor student when his brain seemed to move at the pace of an arthritic snail's.

"I'm not stupid, either," she goes on. She straightens from the lockers, and as her hands fall from her stomach, he sees a crumpled piece of paper in her hands. "So imagine my surprise when Mr. Scheu sits me down and lists out all kinds of compelling evidence as to why I was responsible for the glist." An eyebrow quirks up, and Finn suddenly realizes that he'd rather be facing a firing squad than an angry Quinn Fabray.

"See, if I had made this list," she says, and tosses the balled-up paper at him. It hits him in the chest and falls to the floor between them. "I would have done a few things differently. Namely, not putting myself at the top, because there's no way I'd be that stupid. Don't you think I learned my lesson about how much it sucks to be at the top?

"And secondly." She crosses her arms over her chest. "I would _never_ have made the password on the computer 'glee club'." She makes a disappointed noise and shakes her head. "Really, Finn. I know you struggle with remembering your alphabet sometimes, but honestly? You could have come up with any other number of passwords that were plenty easy to remember, but you chose _that_?"

He stares at her, physically feeling the blood draining out of his face. None of the anger and frustration and hurt he's been burying for the past weeks—all because of _her_—seems willing to make an appearance, pushed away in his psyche by absolutely numbing fear. He's painfully aware of exactly how malicious and creative Quinn can be when she puts her mind to it, and the thought of being on the receiving end of it is enough to make him want to cry.

She takes another step towards him, tilting her head back and staring at him pensively. "I know why you did it," she says softly. "I mean, it was a good idea. When it came out, I wished I'd thought of it." She smiles sadly, and is suddenly the Quinn Fabray everyone has been seeing for the past months—humbled and broken and sad, her fragile form battered around the hallways, her reputation shattered and power stripped—instead of the force of nature that's been staring him down for the past minutes.

"But," she continues. The sad smile is gone, replaced by a hard glint in her eyes, and she's the Quinn Fabray that dominated the school and put people in their place and kept everyone constantly in fear of her sneer. "I didn't do it. Puck doesn't do _lists_. Santana doesn't need it. Brittany doesn't do anything Santana doesn't. The rest of them are too naïve to ever think something like this up on their own. I figured out it was you about thirty seconds after I wished I'd had the idea, because there was only one reason I'd be at the top of your skank list, and Rachel would be at the bottom."

She stares at him levelly, her expression neutral but her eyes flashing darkly. Finn swallows the sudden desire to panic and tells himself that he needs to hold his ground at least once—he let her walk all over him for too long, let her make a fool of him, and even if attempting to trash what remained of her reputation had apparently backfired monstrously, he would be damned if he let her scare him into running away.

"I kept my mouth shut, because I know that I hurt you and I know that you're angry with me," she says lowly. "And I kept my mouth shut with Mr. Scheuster. He thinks I'm terrified of being invisible and forgotten, and he's easier to play than you ever were because he's got it in his head that he's going to save me from my own destructive self." She sneers at the words, and he remembers for the umpteenth time how easily she had always cut him down with a simple look.

"We're even," she says. Her voice is impossibly quiet, audibly soft but laced with the steel and strength he had always associated with Quinn Fabray. She looks him square in the eye, and he gulps visibly. "I covered for you. You're still his golden boy, his wonderful star bigger-man saves-the-day Finn Hudson. He thinks I posted that list to build a new reputation for myself and that everyone else is once again suffering from the idiocy of Quinn Fabray and her lies."

The self-depreciation in her tone is unavoidable, much like the disgust in her eyes. He can't tell if it's directed at him or at herself, but he still feels his shoulders slumping slowly, his body feeling like it's deflating.

She looks him up and down once more, her eyebrows raising slowly. "We're even," she repeats. "I slept with Puck and lied to you. You tried to trash what tiny bit of my dignity I have left and I took the fall for it. We're even, we're square, and you don't get to play the poor hapless victim anymore."

He resists the urge to sag against the lockers, his chest aching. He should have known better than to try to be sneaky and nefarious, should have known that she would figure him out, should have known that there's no one better at tearing people apart than she is; the shredded remains of his own dignity, barely holding together since he first punched Puck in the face, are testament enough to that.

With a sneer that doesn't look at all heartfelt, she pivots on one heel and starts off down the hallway. He watches her go, with her shoulders back and head held high, and wonders how anyone could ever walk by her in the hallways and not stare.


End file.
